Record-breaking cold in U.S. Midwest heads to frigid East Coast

CHICAGO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Bone-chilling cold in the U.S.
Midwest shattered records in Chicago on Thursday, closing
schools and starting its trudge eastward to an already frozen
Boston and New York.

Arctic air was expected to keep its grip on the nation's
midsection on Friday morning, a day after the minus 8 degrees
Fahrenheit (minus 22 Celsius) measured in Chicago broke the low
temperature record of minus 7 degrees for the day set in 1936,
said National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Oravec.

The wind chill made temperatures in Chicago feel like minus
25, he said.

Chicago public schools, serving 396,000 students in the
third largest U.S. school district, canceled classes on Thursday
and many commuters there were bundled so heavily that only their
eyes could be seen.

But not everyone hates the weather. Teejay Riedl, 54, was
filming the steam rising from the Chicago River before work.

"I love it. It's crisp, it's clean, there are no bugs," he
said.

Farther north, Sarah Applin, who works for Travel Market
Vacations in the Milwaukee area, has seen a surge in business.

"We have been very, very busy. It's cold here so everyone
wants to leave," she said.

Bitter cold was headed east, meaning a frosty Friday morning
commute was in store for East Coast residents from Boston down
to Richmond, Virginia, Oravec said. More records are expected to
fall.

With temperatures in Washington, D.C. forecast to reach 3 F
(-19 C) overnight, schools and local governments across the
region were closed or opening with delays on Thursday.

It has been cold enough in New York this week to bring the
roaring Niagara Falls to a halt, as parts of the waterfall trio
on the Canadian border froze over, leaving long spears of ice
cascading down from the falls' edges and glacier-like mounds
rising up from their plunge pools.

Cabin fever appears to have taken hold in Boston, which
broke its own record this week for the snowiest February in the
city's history. Residents in Boston, which has had more than 8
feet (2.4 meters) of snow this winter, are using the social
media hashtag #BostonBlizzardChallenge to share videos of
themselves - wearing only swimsuits - diving into snow banks.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was not amused by the high dives
taken from porches, car roofs, stairs and even second-story
windows.

"It's a foolish thing to do and you could kill yourself,"
Walsh told reporters.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Additional reporting
by Laila Kearney and Barbara Goldberg in New York, Brendan
O'Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington, D.C.;
Editing by Bill Trott)